Written by Gordon McPhee
Luke 18: 1-8
2 TIMOTHY 3:1-4, 12-13, 14-4:5 [MSG]
Don’t be naive. There are difficult times ahead. As the end approaches, people are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting, stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse, dog-eat-dog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic to God. …
… Anyone who wants to live all out for Christ is in for a lot of trouble; there’s no getting around it. Unscrupulous con men will continue to exploit the faith. They’re as deceived as the people they lead astray. As long as they are out there, things can only get worse.
But don’t let it faze you. Stick with what you learned and believed, sure of the integrity of your teachers—why, you took in the sacred Scriptures with your mother’s milk! There’s nothing like the written Word of God for showing you the way to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.
I can’t impress this on you too strongly. God is looking over your shoulder. Christ himself is the Judge, with the final say on everyone, living and dead. He is about to break into the open with his rule, so proclaim the Message with intensity; keep on your watch. Challenge, warn, and urge your people. Don’t ever quit. Just keep it simple.
You’re going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching but will fill up on spiritual junk food—catchy opinions that tickle their fancy. They’ll turn their backs on truth and chase mirages. But you—keep your eye on what you’re doing; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God’s servant.
“WHAT FAZES YOU?”
INTRODUCTION:
What fazes you? It’s a fair question and a quaint little expression that means what disconcerts or bothers you. And what drives me crazy may not bother you at all, and vice versa. Which is why, when Paul writes to Timothy saying, “But don’t let it faze you,” I want to reach out and throttle him. What do you mean, don’t let it faze me? If I could just ignore it or turn it off, it wouldn’t be fazing me, would it? Come over here, Paul, so I can push some of your buttons and then say, 'Don't let it faze you.' And that’s a frustration I think we all understand, have lived with more than we care to admit, and for most of us, still don’t have an answer for. Where can we turn to unfaze the things in our lives that faze us so easily? So today, we’re going to look at the help Paul insists on for Timothy that will fix what fazes you.
SERMON:
The first question we need to ask is, What is this ‘it’ that Paul is referring to when he says to Timothy, “don’t let it faze you.”
Paul covers it nicely in the preceding paragraphs of his letter, telling Timothy not to be naive. “People are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting, stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse, dog-eat-dog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic to God.” (2 Tim 3:1-4) And if that was not sufficient, Paul adds, “Anyone who wants to live all out for Christ is in for a lot of trouble; there’s no getting around it. Unscrupulous con men will continue to exploit the faith. They’re as deceived as the people they lead astray. As long as they are out there, things can only get worse.” (12-13) Hey, “but don’t let it faze you” (14) Paul concludes.
Which prompts me to want to slam a door or cuff him up the side of the head; one of the two. However, I must admit that Paul doesn’t seem to be too far off the mark in describing the state of the world we live in. But, what’s this about the certainty of trouble if we live all out for Christ? In the Anglican mantra of things, we get along with our neighbours, obey the authorities and pay our taxes. We’re the nice people who get along with everybody, apologize profusely and endlessly for past and present errors, and, at least as an official position, open our doors to all and sundry regardless of race, religion, orientation or bias. Or, does that sound more like the people Paul refers to when warning Timothy that “Unscrupulous con men will continue to exploit the faith. They’re as deceived as the people they lead astray.” (13)
What Paul is saying to Timothy, and to us, is that if you’re doing it right, if you live all out for Christ, you will, by necessity, experience a lot of trouble. If living for God is a picnic, you need to check your compass and your map. And that’s precisely what Paul is telling Timothy to do when he tells him, Don’t let it faze you. Paul tells Timothy that, like us, he has a map to show him where he is going, and a compass to keep him on the right path.
The map is the Holy Scriptures, of which Paul says, “There’s nothing like the written Word of God for showing you the way to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Nothing like it! That’s a pretty strong commendation. But Paul starts by reminding Timothy that he’s already on the right road; the goal is not to get sidetracked or distracted. “Stick with what you learned and believed, sure of the integrity of your teachers.” His teachers were his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice, whom Paul praised, saying, “your honest faith—and what a rich faith it is, handed down from your grandmother Lois to your mother Eunice, and now to you” (1:5)! So Timothy is starting from a solid foundation in the Scriptures. Paul tells us how this works to keep us fixed on the right direction.
“Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another” to accomplish four things. First, it “[shows] us truth.” And you may ask me to be a little more explicit. But I would caution you not to fall into the philosophical pit of Pontius Pilate, who jeered at Jesus, “What is truth?” when he had the embodiment of Truth standing before him. The Scriptures are the Truth as they reveal Christ and so define what truth is. What disagrees with Scripture is not truth.
Second, it “[exposes] our rebellion.” If you ever imagine you’re a pretty nice person, not nearly as bad as some others, you need to comb through the scriptures and come face-to-face with the truth. We often avoid reading the Bible because, when read honestly, it’s a humbling experience. As James 1:23 puts it, “[We] … are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who [we] are, what [we] look like.”
The third way it helps is by “correcting our mistakes.” Which it does in very many ways. By example, we can see how others have strayed from being right with God. There is instruction, advice and wisdom—encouragement and hope in poetry and psalms. And indeed, there is a power in the words of scripture that we see in the work of the Holy Spirit speaking to our hearts and minds, or as Paul puts it in Romans 12:2, “You’ll be changed from the inside out. … God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”
And fourth, the Scriptures are “training us to live God’s way.” Which is an interesting way for Paul to put this. Words on a page don’t train us. They may provide the framework or procedures for training, but actual training is active and alive. So I think that’s why Paul immediately adds that, “through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.”
What this means is that God, through the agency of the Holy Spirit working in and around us, will change who we are by the humble, open reception of the Word of God. It will seem no more meaningful than reading a text, but what the Spirit does in your mind and heart is described in Hebrews 4:12-13, “God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey. Nothing and no one can resist God’s Word. We can’t get away from it—no matter what.”
It is ultimately and starkly an act of complete faith. Making what is foolish, the Word of God, profound. As Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 1:21, “God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered stupid—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.” The Scriptures in themselves are just words, but imbued by God through the power of the Holy Spirit, as Isaiah 55:11 expresses it,
they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.”
And I say to you exactly what Paul said to Timothy, “I can’t impress this on you too strongly.” He reminds Timothy that Jesus is Lord. That God is present with him in everything he does, no matter how discouraging the work may be at times, and then he concludes, “But you…” Don’t worry about what others are doing or where they are going. You have your map in the Scriptures to know your position, your direction, and your goal. Paul now tells Timothy four ways in which to use the compass.
The first is to “keep your eye on what you’re doing.” Don’t be looking all around, distracted by every wind of doctrine or new idea. You have your map, the Scriptures, focus on them and trust what they tell you. The second refers back to Paul’s words about “difficult times ahead,” “accept the hard times along with the good.” And again, this is all about trusting what God says in the Scriptures as truth. Rejoice in the good times and the bad, certain that we can be “sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” (Romans 8:28).
Thirdly, Paul tells Timothy to “keep the Message alive,” which may, at first reading, seem strange. How can the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ be dormant? But here, Paul means to encourage Timothy never to stop bringing the message of Jesus wherever he goes. There will be many people who will not wish to hear the Gospel and would quietly distract Timothy from speaking up, but Timothy must be diligent and persistent, and so must we.
And lastly is to “do a thorough job as God’s servant.” Be diligent in what you do. Many of Jesus’ parables emphasize the importance of staying awake, being prepared, watching and waiting, never becoming complacent or at ease with ourselves. This is important not for its own sake, but because it reveals the character that the Holy Spirit engenders within us and demonstrates outwardly what is truly important to us: our core values. It shows “the place where your treasure is, … the place you will most want to be, and end up being” (Matthew 6:21).
Four ways by which the Scriptures are our map, showing us our way in life: showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, and training us to live God’s way. And four ways we have a compass in the Holy Spirit to help us understand the map: keep your eye on what you’re doing, accept the hard times along with the good, keep the Message alive, and do a thorough job as God’s servant. So what fazes you?
I know what fazes me. My midterm exam next Thursday. Not to mention a 2,000-word Policy Brief, and two 3,000-word term papers by December. And I haven’t got a clue what I’m going to write. Perhaps for you, it’s the logistics of family, finances, and life in general over the next few months. Or broader concerns about the changing landscape of our society and the constant barrage of global poverty, wars, disasters, and discontent. Do you examine the veracity of your own faith, convictions, and doctrine to answer the questions you have and the questions of those who would challenge your faith?
This hasn’t changed since Paul was writing to Timothy. The cure for what fazes you hasn’t changed either. “Stick with what you learned and believed, sure of the integrity of your teachers. There’s nothing like the written Word of God for showing you the way to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us. I can’t impress this on you too strongly.”
“Our loving God uses the Scriptures to draw us to Himself” (Marvin Williams, Our Daily Bread Canada, October 16, 2025). There is nothing more vital in your life than daily allowing God the Holy Spirit to work salvation in you through the reading of His Word. And after that, nothing can faze you.
Amen
